Heathrow Airport Expansion

Danny Beales Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing this timely and important debate. She set out very well the issues that we are concerned about and grappling with.

Heathrow expansion raises significant concerns among my constituents, given that my constituency neighbours the airport. As has been said, this is not a new issue. I was going to say that it has been going on since the ’90s, but apparently it was in 1983—before I was born at Hillingdon hospital—that the people took up the mantle and battled expansion. That explains why people are incredibly frustrated and jaded: the same questions are being asked yet again, but we are getting no answers to these decades-long problems.

The Government have been explicit time and again about their commitment to the four tests, which I share. Does Heathrow expansion deliver economic growth in every region? Is it consistent with our climate change commitments? Will it undermine air quality progress? Will the plans properly manage, limit and mitigate the noise impact? If the expansion fails to meet those tests, it should not be allowed to go ahead. That was always my starting point, and to this day I have been consistent about that when looking at the proposals.

To be frank, the numbers that we have seen are not reassuring. According to the Government’s own modelling, the impact on GDP is predicted to be just 0.03% to 0.05% by 2056—a reduction in the economic benefit set out in earlier estimates by a factor of 10. In addition, the Department’s modelling suggests that, once monetised costs and benefits are considered, expansion could impose greater costs than benefits over 60 years, with a negative net present value of between £20 billion and £60 billion to the economy.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that there would potentially be benefits to consumers, but projections suggest that ticket prices could rise by £60 to £65, or £250 for a family of four, as the higher airline charges to fund the development will be passed on to passengers. Rather than extend air travel to more, it could price out ordinary families from travelling from Heathrow. That is why major airlines themselves are concerned about the proposals. Many Members have heard from them.

I share the new Government’s ethos of delivering growth in every postcode, but the analysis shows that Heathrow would not be a silver bullet. Modelling suggests that between 72% and 92% of the benefits of the expansion would be concentrated in London and the south-east, and research by the New Economics Foundation suggests that up to 15,000 jobs could be displaced from regions outside London and the south-east, harming regional airport capacity. Many Members are rightly fighting for such growth in their regions.

It was previously claimed that expansion could be funded entirely from private investment, but that is simply not the case. There are real concerns about burdens on taxpayers. Just last week, Heathrow told the Transport Committee that it does not intend to cover the full cost of rail infrastructure. Time and again, we see taxpayers in London and elsewhere in the UK pick up the price for Heathrow-related travel. The new Elizabeth line trains, which are being built and will be rolled out soon, will not serve West Drayton, my constituents or constituents between Reading and Maidenhead, because the capacity is going to serve Heathrow, but the airport is providing no money. The headlines about expansion tell us one thing, but Heathrow bosses admit to another.

We risk pressing ahead with an incredibly expensive and financially dubious infrastructure project not because it offers a credible path to growth but because it has become a symbol of whether we are committed to growth in an abstract form. We saw that with HS2. Although rail expansion and capacity are undoubtedly needed in the country, we pushed ahead with a project that was poorly scoped, poorly costed and poorly specced, and it led to decades of underperformance and cost inflation.

As Members have said, the evidence falls flat on the other tests too. On the noise impact, a huge number of people will be pulled into increased noise and disruption across London, although the flight paths are still uncertain, so we cannot be sure about the exact scope and extent. The costs of mitigating noise impacts, with secondary glazing or replacement housing, are potentially exponential, and we still do not know how they will be paid or who will pay for them.

The Climate Change Committee’s work, published last month, found that aviation emissions had more than doubled since 1990, and that Heathrow currently accounted for half of all UK aviation emissions. It concluded there is no credible pathway for Heathrow expansion to be compatible with the UK’s vital climate commitments under current policies. Meanwhile, on air pollution, serious concerns remain over the reliability of modelling and whether the impact of the latest expansion proposals has been sufficiently assessed.

Frankly, there is no point standing on a commitment to these four tests as criteria for shaping the future of Heathrow, if the moment they are not met, we abandon them. It is not something I can do while looking my constituents squarely in the face. For many of us, Heathrow expansion is a perennial issue that should be dealt with, so we do not have to keep on talking about it. For residents in Hillingdon and London, the impacts will be profound, with the case as shaky now as it has ever been.

That has been compounded by what can only be described as an incredibly poor consultation process, which failed to engage properly with the strength of feeling on the issue, with consultations taking place in August, despite many stakeholders, including me, outlining the difficulty of securing proper engagement over the summer. Heathrow’s own consultation that is taking place as we speak, with have no events in my constituency, despite its neighbouring the airport. Perhaps Heathrow does not want to hear questions because, as we have seen time and again, it does not have the answer to meeting the four tests.

We must take our time and think fully about the implications of expansion. We must have access to proper data that is thought through. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Putney in calling for a proper national strategy about our aviation needs, which thinks holistically about every region and every aspect of our nation’s aviation needs. We must think again on Heathrow expansion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

No; I have just given way twice, and I will happily give way again later. Since the announcement was made, the Conservative party’s leadership has been clear: expansion should go ahead provided that sensible and proportionate local mitigation measures form part of that plan. Heathrow and the Government have already set out a number of those measures. However, it is critical that they genuinely serve the interests of local residents and do not impose excessive costs that will ultimately be passed on to passengers.

I turn to the challenges posed for the Minister in the debate. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey, as well as the former Prime Minister and the current Chancellor have all backed the project. The Minister is now in the unenviable position of trying to explain whether the Government of which he is a member actually support expansion or not. The situation has become a political version of Schrödinger’s cat. The Prime Minister seems to believe that by refusing to give a clear answer and by deflecting attention towards the concerns about other projects, he can leave some people believing that the runway idea is alive and some believing it is dead, all at the same time.

The other day, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the International Monetary Fund:

“The case for a third runway at Heathrow has always been a case for growth”.

This created a completely different impression of the Government’s position. Unfortunately, that good cop, bad cop approach to expansion does little to reassure investors—not just investors in Heathrow, but investors in the UK in general. As Heathrow made clear in evidence to the Transport Committee, investors want clarity about the regulatory framework so that they can assess the project’s business case with confidence.

Although there has been much speculation about the timetable for expansion, the lack of clarity over the Government’s position and regulatory framework risks undermining confidence further. If the Prime Minister does not appear to give the project his support, how on earth can investors have confidence in the regulatory process, which is ultimately overseen by the Government he leads?

I am afraid that the discrepancy between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor gets to the heart of the challenges facing the Government. By giving the public the impression that they are jettisoning the previous Government’s commitment, the Prime Minister is once again demonstrating what has become his trademark skill: evading responsibility and avoiding difficult decisions.

[Danny Beales]

The right hon. Gentleman has presented the clarity in the Opposition’s position, but my understanding is that the Conservative party is quite divided on this matter. The local Conservative-led council in Hillingdon opposes it, as do many MPs. The position that he put forward had quite a big “if” caveat: they would support it “if” there were no costs and additional measures. Those measures are not clear. As many have said, the costs are not being covered. The taxpayer would have to foot the bill for significant transport improvements and mitigation measures, which are not being funded. What price are the Opposition willing to have taxpayers pay for Heathrow to go ahead?

[Mr Holden]

Whenever there is a large infrastructure project in the country—we are fully aware of this and always have been—there will always be local objections, as we would expect at council and sometimes constituency MP level. I think everybody understands that. The broader point is that Heathrow will be a privately funded project, and we support it on that basis.

What is the cost of the failure to make a decision? It is lost growth and forgone private sector investment. This is the same behaviour that we have seen towards vital projects such as more drilling in the North sea. The Prime Minister wants to talk about re-industrialisation without giving British companies or businesses the tools they need to achieve that. As the Leader of the Opposition stated:

“The future of our country’s busiest airport is not a regional matter”

That is why I take issue with some of the speeches made by Members today. This is a matter for the country and for the Prime Minister, so, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, he needs to “stop faffing about” and “get this runway built.”

There has been much discussion today about the level of economic growth that the airport would deliver, to pick up on the intervention made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park. However, we should all be able to agree that the project would bring economic benefits. The £17 billion in benefits estimated by Heathrow is a considerable sum. Although I understand that the Department has produced different figures, I ask the Minister what steps the Department is taking to ensure that its economic analysis captures the full benefits for passengers and trade in full and, indeed, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, right across the United Kingdom as well.

Furthermore, the project will increase investment in UK supply chains, create jobs and provide opportunities for new apprenticeships. The chief executive officer of Heathrow said only last week that of the billions in private sector investment, 95% will go into the UK supply chains, alongside more than 100,000 jobs that Heathrow says the project could support.